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Journal Briefs: Cadaver Pancreas/Living Kidney Transplants for Diabetic Patients; Use of OKT3 to Avoid Transplantation
November 15, 2000· by TNN Medical Reporter Virginia Baskerville

* Alan C. Farney, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Maryland School of Medicine suggest that surgeons consider the use of simultaneous cadaver-donor pancreas and living-donor kidney transplantation in uremic patients with type 1 diabetes. They wrote in Annals of Surgery in November that the procedure is advantageous to solitary cadaver-donor pancreas transplantation and to simultaneous cadaver kidney and pancreas transplantation because it offers the potential benefits of living-donor kidney donation: a shorter waiting time, expansion of the organ donor pool, and improved short-term and long-term kidney graft function (2000;232:696-703). See www.annalsofsurgery.com.

* In a study of five children with acute myocarditis, the use of the immunosuppressant OKT3 avoided the need for heart transplantation, Dr. Juan Alejos and colleagues at UCLA reported in the November issue of the Journal Heart and Lung Transplantation (2000;19:1118). In all five cases, OKT3 reversed the heart damage. "The five children were close to death, but… after the children were given OKT3, all five experienced an amazing recovery. The researchers say these are the first documented cases that using OKT3 in a modified way-and under different circumstances-works in seriously ill children," UCLA said at www.ucla.edu/Templates/NewsItem2.html.

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